Menu

Aladdin

Firstly, a big howdy-doody to new patron Brooks Chupp, legendary silent movie film star and rumoured paramour of First Lady Grace Coollidge.

Now you may have heard that the Frozen 2 and Aladdin trailers have dropped so let’s see if we can guess the plot and save ourselves the price of a pair of cinema tickets.

Okay, Elsa has gone mad with power and declared war on the ocean King Cnut style.

Meanwhile Anna discovers that the ocean’s allies, the nefarious blue diamonds, have launched a sneak attack on the castle in Elsa’s absence.

But all is not lost, Christof, who, despite his love for Anna has married the queen of the reindeer to cement a dynastic alliance, rides with the reindeer army to liberate Arrendale from the icy pointy clutches of the blue diamonds and send them back to Homeworld. But at what cost?

Lots of leaves. Loooots of leaves. I think Disney are betting that leaves are the new snow. Getting a very autumnal vibe from this. Or as you Americans call it, “fallish”.

Anna just straight up cutting a bitch.

Okay, I mostly dig this. I was afraid that this was following in the footsteps of Frozen Fever and Olaf’s Frozen Adventure and this definitely seems to have more somber, high stakes tone. Love the colour pallette too, and hearing Idina Menzel (I think?) try her hand at the Sami chanting from the first movie was a real kick. So, yeah, cautiously optimistic.

Let’s see how quickly we can kill that.

Oh boy. So can we first get this out of the way: They have “Arabian Nights” playing in the background, Jafar and Aladdin standing in front of the Cave of Wonders and then Jafar dropping the name “Aladdin” like it’s supposed to be a massive reveal. Like, who the hell else is it going to be? Ariel?

As to what happens in the plot, my guess is: THE EXACT SAME THING THAT HAPPENED IN THE FIRST ALADDIN ONLY WITH A FEW EXTRANEOUS SUB PLOTS AND MAYBE RAJAH WILL BE GAY NOW #DIVERSITY.

Look Disney, if you’re going to KEEP FUCKING DOING THIS at least remake the ones that would actually benefit from a remake. Atlantis. Black Cauldron. Treasure Planet. You know, the ones that had good concepts that just needed better execution.

Also:

I dreamed this thing many years ago when stricken by a terrible fever and now it’s real and out in the world and I think this is the the end for all of us. I think we are doomed. Good bye.

(DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material. New to the blog? Start at the start with Snow White.)

***

In her video on the rivalry between Dreamworks and Disney, the Nostalgia Chick called Aladdin “The first Dreamworks movie” and I think that’s pretty much spot on. Of all the movies of the Disney renaissance this is the one that most strongly bears the stamp of one Jeffrey Katzenberg. Celebrity voices? We got celebrity voices. Broad comedy for the kids with slightly more adult humour for the grown ups? Come in, my friend. Trendy pop culture references and catchphrases that seem refreshingly modern at the time of release but as the years go by seem more and more…um…

NOT!

Yeah. This movie was really where that whole Dreamworks style was born. And that’s actually not a diss. I knock Dreamworks a lot on this blog (as is my God-given right as a Disney fan), but I’ll be the first to admit that when their formula works it works damn well. One of the reasons I think Aladdin is so good is because it combines the best of both Disney and what would later become Dreamworks. It’s funny and snarky but it’s got also got a heart as big as all outdoors. And yes, it’s by far the most glitzy and “Hollywood” of the Renaissance Movies. That’s Katzenberg’s influence as well. When directors Ron Clements and Jon Musker showed Katzenberg the original test reel he hated it so much that he told them to start again from scratch. Now, you’ll remember, the exact same thing happened to Beauty and the Beast as well but this was different. With Beauty and the Beast, the original concept was reworked into an Ashman/Menken musical. Aladdin was ALREADY an Ashman/Menken musical. The new creative imprint that reshaped the movie after the disaster of the showreel screening (“Black Friday” as it was called) was Katzenberg and new script writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. Even Katzenberg’s choices of phrasing were pure Hollywood; when telling the animators that Aladdin needed to be more heroic and someone worthy of Jasmine he said “He’s Michael J. Fox, he needs to be Tom Cruise.”

He needs the grin of a mako shark and the cold dead eyes of a killer?

The fact that Aladdin is such a showy, glitzy, thrill ride I think leads some to dismiss it as the airheaded “pretty one” . “Sure” tut the snobs “It’s entertainment enough for the proles. But is it art?”

Balderdash!

Well, I would actually say that there’s more artistry on display here than in Beauty and the Beast. And lest you think I’m just engaging in more unwarranted BatB bashing I’ll throw my beloved Little Mermaid in and say it’s more artistically accomplished than that film too.

Mouse! How could you!?

Let’s start with the artwork. The backgrounds in Mermaid and Beast are generic and pretty bland. Now look at Agrabah.

Like the characters (with the deliberate exception of Jafar) everything about the city is curved, unique and inviting. The artists based the architecture of the city on Arabian calligraphy and it actually compliments the characters rather than simply being a static stage for them to perform. And the character animation is another giant leap. Think of how much character and emotion they manage to invest in the magic carpet, a goddamn rectangle. And that’s not even getting started on the feat of animation that is the Genie. So yeah, I don’t buy the argument that just because this movie is more fun than Beauty and the Beast it’s somehow less of an artistic achievement. If anything, the fact that it’s so entertaining while breaking serious new ground in the field of animation makes it an even better film in my eyes. Look at it this way: